“Our deep immersion in cultures in which communication occurs primarily through print and electronic media that require high levels of literacy, together with the fact that the only extant artifacts of the Jesus movement and its successors are texts, have blinded us to the reality that the latter were produced in predominantly oral cultures” (Ritva H. Williams, Stewards, Prophets, Keepers of the Word (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2006) p.6).